Feeling humanity
by misssoup
Summary: A peek into what Elijah had been doing all these years he walked on this planet.


**This is my first on so forgive me if I'm not up to it yet. I seek to improve and I hope I do! I do not own Elijah (unfortunately :() and I do not own the Vampire Diaries otherwise the characters are original. Hope you like it!**

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><p>Autumn 1948, Bulgaria<p>

She was told to wait near the fence at the side of the forested area beside the camp at 3 hours past midnight. The mystery man, the one who was secretly talked about among her fellow inmates, would come for her tonight. He came for them one by one each day, in an attempt to avoid the suspicion from the officers. Tonight, it was her turn to leave this hellish place.

Clad in her prisoner's gown, she sat down on the grass and huddled her knees close to herself. The night was cold but her heart felt warm knowing that she never had to wake up anymore to a feeling of purposeless of life. A smile crept up onto her face, something that she hadn't done for a long, long time ever since she saw her parents being murdered right in front of her.

She came from a rather wealthy family in the country, her father being the director of a textile company. They led a carefree life throughout the years as a loving family, or so she thought. When she was 18, however, she found out that her parents were part of an organization that was staging a plan to rebel against the communist party that was currently ruling the country. She thought they would never find out about her parents being part of the organization, given that the members were kept strictly confidential. She supported her parents very much then, aspiring to join the organization when she was of age. Until one day, things took an unexpected and disastrous turn.

The army invaded their home that day, catching all of them by surprise. Her mother had told her to leave first by the basement escape route of her house, one that she never knew of prior to this. She obeyed, dashing for the trapdoor in their yard immediately. But before she could reach there, she heard a few earth-shattering gunshots coming from the living room. She turned and what she saw was forever imprinted in her memory – her parents lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

Her knees grew weak and she fell to the ground, clutching the wall beside her for support. It was then the group of men armed with their guns noticed her and took her. She didn't resist, because all she could think of was the lifeless forms of her parents' bodies at her very own home.

The first few nights in the concentration camp she cried so hard that her eyes were sore and puffy the next day. But later, she realized that this wouldn't be the kind of life her parents wanted her to live. The goal of her parents was to overthrow the ruling party, and not to be succumbed by them, like the situation she was stuck in right now. She straightened out her thoughts and began socializing with the other inmates, gathering ideas on how each of them planned to escape the camp.

However, the more she found out from the inmates around her, the more dejected she got. The responses were mostly negative, with many experienced inmates warning her against thinking of any escape because never was there a successful case in the few years they were there. All of them ended up dead.

She was beginning to lose all hope, until one day, one of the inmates came up to her and told her about a mystery man who saved one of his friends from the camp. She saw a glimmer of hope, and agreed to the arrangement immediately.

It had been around 20 minutes, but the man has not arrived. She was feeling jittery because she had heard a little noise in the distance, as if somebody was not asleep yet. She prayed that it wouldn't be the officers. She would surely be dead then.

She squeezed her knees as close to her body as possible, as though that would make her blend into the darkness more. Her heart was pounding so hard she was almost afraid that the sound of it would attract unwanted attention. 'Please, sir, whoever you are, come soon,' she thought in her mind.

The shuffling sounds that came from inside the camp caught her attention and she jerked her head towards the direction of the officers' base. There she saw two silhouettes and she heard a faint conversation coming from them. She gasped. They were coming for her.

"Some of the inmates seemed to have disappeared," one of them said, in a bitter and angry voice. "Have you not been doing your job? How could you let them escape?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I will send my men to guard the borders of the camp immediately, sir," came a submissive reply.

"You'd better be. One more escape and you are the one who will suffer their deserved fate."

"Y-yes, sir."

As soon as the conversation ended, she saw the silhouette moving and coming closer. Her heart pounded hard in fear, knowing that she was going to be discovered soon.

"Hey, what are you doing there?" he shouted.

She was going to die.

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><p>The foolishness of human decisions in the recent years grieved him till no end and he hated to feel this deep down within him.<p>

He heard the conversation between the officers and let out a soft disappointed sigh. It seemed that tonight's prisoner was the last soul he could save from this camp. He had contemplated killing all the officers and letting the prisoners go. Easy as it was to kill humans, but what difference would that make him from them then? He had vowed never to kill a very, very long time ago, and he wasn't about to break this vow now.

He saw from a distance the guard advancing on the crouching figure beside the fence, the one he was supposed to save. He was holding up a gun and pointing towards her. There was no time to lose. He effortlessly leapt over the barb-wired fence and placed himself between the guard and the girl. In one very quick motion that was too fast for the human eye to perceive, he scooped the girl up and brought her out of the camp and into the forest.

A few gunshots were fired and he felt the girl shiver in his arms.

He looked down at her, concerned, and was suddenly taken in by the resemblance she bore towards a person he had known a long time ago.

The gunshots were still firing, and he was careful to avoid each one of them. He could hear the pounding of footsteps from the guard and his reinforcements. He stepped up his speed, clutching her tighter to himself, fighting to block away the memories that were threatening to flood in.

They reached the horse carriage that he had prepared. He quickly got in with the girl and ordered the driver to go as fast as he could.

The gunshots were getting faint now and they were almost safe.

He lit up an oil lamp in the carriage to look again at the girl he had saved. She stared up at him when the light was illuminated, and had this look as if she was in awe. But he had no time to decipher the look on her face. He was too astonished by the brown hair and the round eyes that she shared with the one he thought of.

But she didn't look identical, she only resembled, and he let out an inaudible sigh of relief.

"What is your name?" he asked. He usually didn't ask this when he saved prisoners, but he had to know the name of this girl. He couldn't just stop at remembering her face; he needed a name to put to it.

She hesitated for a while, as if trying to recollect a lot of thoughts in one go. He understood. She must have been in shock after all the action he had inadvertently put her through.

"Tatiana," she finally said.

The name seemed to unlock the floodgates of his memories again the second time that night.

"Thank you, sir."

"Tatiana." He hadn't said the name for a very, very long time, even if it was a variant, and now it sounded as if the voice he used to say it didn't belong to him. "Please call me Elijah."


End file.
